Marketplace (47 page)

“Yes, so you’ve told me.
You did very well in general this time around, especially in
spotting the potential in Brian. So naturally, I’m putting you in
charge of him when the others leave.”

“Yes, Sir.” Between
clenched teeth.

“Now, now, don’t sulk. You
saw him, you insisted we keep him, now he’s going to be your
problem for a few more weeks. Tonight was just to remind you that
your status here is so precarious. You may be valuable, but you’re
ours as long as you need us.” His words were harsh, but his voice
was kind, and Chris closed his eyes again. Grendel let Chris go.
“Go to bed. There will be a lot of people expecting to see you
tomorrow, and I want you looking sharp.”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll try to
improve myself, Sir.”

Grendel walked away without
comment, thinking, Goddamn perfectionist!

Part Three: Chapter
Twenty-Two

Many pictures have been
painted of the sales within the Marketplace. Bright lights and
stages, glass cages and mirrored tables, golden chains and liveried
waiters serving up trays of paddles have all appeared from time to
time. Some of those elements have even appeared in the actual
events as well as the books supposedly written about
them.

But one thing is true,
wherever you are. In the pages of fiction and on the bidding tables
of the Marketplace, the auctions take place silently, with numbers
entered on computers or written down in leather folios, or passed
to special couriers in sealed envelopes. It would never do for a
slave to know what their value is. Or to see their potential owners
fighting among themselves. No, it’s best that a slave is forced to
wait in silence, enduring the pain of the mystery, until a hand
comes to snap shut the open lock that hangs from that simple chain
collar.

The procedure is simple at
our house. Each slave is mounted on a special pedestal, a number on
a tag around their neck. An open padlock joins the two ends of the
collar, and a key is in the lock. Their folders sit on shelves that
protrude from the pedestals, and bidders are welcome to examine the
contents. Many of them will have copies already, sent to them for
perusal before the actual sale. The folders contain the history of
the slave, notes from trainers or former owners, and a copy of
their contract.

The slaves are not bound,
but are positioned on their knees with their hands behind their
backs and their legs spread. Those who are not voice trained are
gagged. It is a mercy, really. The voice trained may have to answer
questions, and that is always so difficult under circumstances like
these.

The bidding folders are
actually in another room. There is no chance that any slave will
even know how often he or she has been bid upon. Qualified buyers
have until a certain time to write their high bid down, and they
are permitted to return and bid again before the cut-off time. In
our house, as in many older ones with an established clientele, we
have a system of preferred buyers who are always given one
opportunity to top the highest bid.

When a winning bid is
determined, the new owner goes to their new slave, removes the
numbered tag, and may replace it with their own. But the one
gesture that makes the sale complete is when they sign the three
copies of the contract and take one, and secure the lock, taking
the key.

The slave does not need to
sign. They signed when they were free.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

The sale began at nine in
the evening. There were twelve qualified buyers present, plus
representatives of preferred buyers who had placed advance bids and
given instructions to bid up to a certain amount on their behalf.
All of them had seen the two slaves before, so a lot of the
pre-sale discussion was actually among themselves rather than with
the slaves. Not that Sharon would have made interesting
conversation. She was very securely gagged.

The buyers were a diverse
group, quiet in their wealth, careful in speech, casual in dress.
Grendel and Alexandra were dressed up, as good hosts should be, and
mixed freely, introducing people and chatting amiably with old
friends.

Mistress Madeleine arrived
early in the day and Alexandra took her into her sunny office to
chat for a while. When Madeleine was ready, Alex sent for Claudia,
who arrived led by Chris. Chris was already in his suit for the
night, dark and elegant, and next to him, Claudia could have been
wearing a little black dress of the kind that women wore to fancy
dress functions instead of the housekeeper’s frock that it was. Her
hair was up, and charmingly so, and her pleasure at seeing her
mistress was so clear in her eyes that Alex had to smile. How could
Madeleine have thought of sending the girl away?

“I would like you to see
something,” Alex said, gesturing to Chris after Claudia had made
her proper curtsy. Chris brought Brian in, and put him in a bent
over position, and handed Claudia a cane.

Madeleine stared in
astonishment as Claudia gave Brian one hell of a formal caning,
telling him how to count and ask for the next, striking him in
evenly spaced red lines, and holding the cane for him to kiss
afterward. Chris sent Brian away with the cane, and followed him,
leaving three women in the room.

“That’s just one thing
we’ve done,” Alexandra said, pleased with Claudia’s performance. “I
think you’ll want some privacy to discuss things for a while.
Please ring me if you need anything.”

As soon as she left,
Claudia ran to Madeleine and dropped to her knees. “Oh Mistress!”
she cried, bending her head. “I love you! Don’t send me away,
please!”

Madeleine lifted Claudia’s
chin and said softly, “Why, I wasn’t planning to, little one. Alex
told me all about how you’ve done. And I’m very, very proud. I want
to hear all about it... when we get home. Right now, I want you to
come upstairs to my room and show me what you can do.”

Claudia’s exuberance almost
carried them both up the stairs. And when she appeared later,
leashed at her mistress’ side, her eyes glowing, Brian, Sharon, and
Robert all envied her. Madeleine was every bit as beautiful as
Claudia had claimed, and if Claudia was really as happy as she
seemed, she had gotten what she dreamed of.

Sharon chewed on the
mouthpiece of her gag, hating every passing minute. She hated the
way people glanced at her folder and put it back down. She hated
the way no one talked about anything in front of her, and the way
people ignored her, and the way they paid attention to Robert. But
she composed herself, thinking, soon. Soon.

“
Bids will be collected in
ten minutes, ladies and gentlemen!” Chris walked through the crowd,
looking like a butler for once, instead of a working guy in a suit.
A lot of people seemed to be friendly with him, and he smiled a
lot. Robert’s old mistress, for example, the woman Grendel called
Ali, seemed to think seeing the little bastard was a real treat.
Sharon was the only one of the four not to feel any sympathy for
the little man. She thought it was just fine that he would never
get what he wanted. She straightened her back every time she saw
him pass. Eat your heart out, Chris, she thought. I’m up where you
wanna be. But he paid her no attention at all.

Robert had his mind full of
old fears and new hopes and all the knowledge shoved into him for
the past six weeks. He answered questions in a daze, and even
smiled at Mistress Allison when Chris brought her over to look at
him. But he was elsewhere, waiting for it all to end. He envied
Brian, who was going to get another month of training before he had
to do this. I’m not ready, he thought. I’m scared. What am I doing
here? I can’t do this! But he smiled and answered questions put to
him anyway.

“
Final bids have been
accepted,” Chris announced. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. High
bids will be verified, and preferred buyers given their chance to
bid now. Results will be announced in the main dining hall in
twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes, an
eternity.

Twenty minutes, gone in a
flash.

Applause, in the distance,
no names, no clue what was happening. And then a low rumbling noise
as people entered the hallway again, heading toward the front room,
the ballroom, where the two slaves knelt waiting for hands and
keys. Robert ached to stretch, felt hot and cold at the same time.
Sharon felt like she could throw up.

Robert almost died when he
saw the woman who was walking toward him, a pen in her hand. She
was one of the women identified to him as a “friend of Madame’s,” a
woman in an elite circle of mistresses who lived the life in a
strict, almost Victorian milieu. She had another slave with her, a
personal secretary, a woman in a high lace blouse, who followed her
every step. And when the mistress signed the three copies of the
contract, Robert felt tears forming in his eyes.

“How sweet,” she said,
lifting one finger to catch one as it spilled. “Emily, we seem to
have purchased a romantic.” Robert lightly kissed the tear away as
his new mistress extended the finger to his mouth. Her hand dipped
lower and closed the lock gently. He closed his eyes in
ecstasy.

“Well, here we are,” said a
gruff voice at Sharon’s side. She turned slightly to look, even
thought it was against the rules, and saw one of the men who had
seen her the earlier in the week. He was in his late fifties, she
estimated, with longish brown hair speckled with white. He seemed
to be in good shape, which was a relief. She tried to remember what
he had been like. He had not used her sexually, but read her file a
lot. She remembered him sitting on a narrow chair, his briefcase in
his lap, asking questions. She had him pegged as a
voyeur.

Which wasn’t so bad,
really. Spending a lot of time jerking off wasn’t a terrible
vocation, but it might get dull after a while. What was more
important was what she remembered about the man. He was a widower,
for many years, he had said. And he lived in Texas, but traveled
back east a great deal.

“Let’s make sure this is
what I recall,” he said carefully, pulling the contracts out of her
folder. He scanned through one and nodded. “Yes, that’s me. Someone
get me a pen!“ Chris handed him one and he signed all three
contracts with a flourish. Sharon wished she could give him a great
big smile, but she would wait patiently until he got around to
taking the gag off. This wasn’t going to be so bad! He was older,
and a widower, so he was probably lonely. He lived south and
traveled east, so he was probably very rich. And if he made few
demands on her, so much the better. In time, she’d win his heart,
and then who knew what could happen?

Then, suddenly, a
hot-looking young woman appeared next to him. “Hi, Daddy,” she
said, looking up at Sharon. “Is this the one?”

Sharon snorted out a sigh
of relief. It was only his daughter!

“Yes, she sure is,
honeybunch. You like her?”

The girl looked at Sharon
critically. “I guess,” she said finally. “I wish you’d let me pick
them!”

“Next time,” the old man
said. Sharon felt bewildered. Her eyes shifted back and forth
between the two people. “I had to buy this one because of the
clauses in her contract, honey. Says here she wants a single
fellow, and I guess that you getting married soon is gonna get in
the way of your being single. But when you and Chet move into the
big house, she’ll be right there for you, honey. You just keep her
for when I come visit, and that’ll be just fine.”

“Well,” the girl said, her
eyes narrowing, “I guess so. We can put her to work in the kitchen,
I suppose, when you’re not home. I wonder if we can train her to
give a good pedicure. I could use home manicures and pedicures.”
Sharon felt those eyes boring into her. She panicked and started to
snort air around the gag. Manicures? Daughter? Son-in-law to be?
When you’re home?

“You can train her to do
anything you want, sugar. All I need her for is a little warmth in
the sack three or four times a year. Y’all can do what ever makes
sense when I’m not there.” Taking the contracts and his daughter,
the man moved on, accepting the congratulations of his
friends.

Sharon caught Chris looking
at her out of the corner of his eye. She expected him to look
triumphant. Instead, he looked sorry for her. She looked away,
unable to bear it.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

The house did very well on
the two sales and on the money paid for Claudia’s retraining. As
expected, Sharon’s stunning attractiveness had driven the bidding
up a great deal. And Grendel couldn’t help but laugh over the
situation she was sold into. It was petty and mean-spirited, he
knew, but it felt good. He did not regret not fucking her in a
conventional way.

In the nights after the
sale, they finished up assorted old business and put the money away
and took some time to figure out their fall schedule. Alex blocked
out two weeks on her calendar for “Resort,” and he knew better than
to argue. Besides, the vacation would be needed. They expected at
least two more applicants before then, and of course, there was
Brian.

Brian was kneeling, his
hands behind his back, facing them as they worked on their
schedule. They were doing patience and endurance training, dull but
absolutely essential in a valuable slave. And he was showing his
sustained excellence nicely, even under Chris‘s almost satanic
supervision.